Random Talking about stuff thread (90,927 views)

[tim]

a lot of textbooks cost a round 100-150

[Mario the black knight]

Ehh..At first it didn't make sense to me, then I thought about it, and it's an odd paper size mixed with an extremely thick binding, I guess it would be expensive to produce, plus they are made by rich white people, so naturally they have to keep making money by being a paracite off of helpless students.

[pichubro]

They're made in Texas. They have to be salient.

There was a debacle a few years ago when the Texans wanted to remove any evidence that Thomas Jefferson was a large contributor to early American history. Hahaha

[Mario the black knight]

God, Texans can be so retarded! I guess the characters they are famous for are Bevis and Butthead, and the cast of King of the Hill, so they never did set the bar high. But really!? They do know who Jefferson is, right? Or maybe the guy who actually wrote the constitution isn't that important, what do I know!?

[tim]

Jun 24, 2011 11:23:48 GMT -5 Mario the black knight said:

Ehh..At first it didn't make sense to me, then I thought about it, and it's an odd paper size mixed with an extremely thick binding, I guess it would be expensive to produce, plus they are made by rich white people, so naturally they have to keep making money by being a paracite off of helpless students.

textbooks have to be one of the biggest rackets out there. they slightly edit them every year or two and release "new editions" which classes then require, so people cant keep buying used older editions. when classes actually assign problems from the books as requirements you're especially fucked because then you HAVE to pay for the new books because 98% of the changes are different chapter problems instead of buying the used version on amazon for 100 dollars less.

[tim]

hm the thomas jefferson thing sounds fishy, although there was a big controversy about texas changing the contents of many textbooks to various ridiculous things like brushing over slavery(you'd think texas would want to talk about slavery as much as possible) and putting in a bunch of propaganda like replacing every use to the term "capitalism" with the term "free enterprise system."

[pichubro]

Yeah there was that too.

The thing about Jefferson was (what I heard), they were only going to say that he wrote the Constitution (which is not entirely true), and that he was the 3rd President, but would not say much else even though Jefferson WAS pretty influential even in non-political fields.

[tim]

why wouldnt texans like thomas jefferson, it makes no sense. he was a southerner and an advocate of 'small government'

[pichubro]

Texans are just a confused people.

[Mario the black knight]

Wow.......... That really is pretty lame. They couldn't cost more than $40-50 at most to produce either, so they really are just an enormous, inescapable scam I guess.

Good lord, they really are confused, and crazy clearly. I guess it's just an example of just how much americans have no clue what the want and how little they really know. It's like they picked someone at random and decided "we don't like him anymore". Remember back during the whole Healthcare thing when that one Senator or whatever insinuated Texas wanted to break from the union over Healthcare. Crazy old Texans, ha ha ha ha ha.

[tim]

i wish these people would stop with the threats and just do it alright. i dont want the south.

[Mario the black knight]

Yeah, but we know they are too big of bitches to do it. At the end of the day, they know they wouldn't survive without us, you know, civilized people. They know they wouldn't be punishing us if they left.

[tim]

lincoln should have let them go

[Mario the black knight]

Well then what about the west coast, the mid west, and other territories like that, how would we have delt with them? The resources from the southwest (ie silicon for computer chips) is what keeps this country even remotely useful in the world market anymore, so having to import that too would probably make us completely useless if we had no connection to them, and we would have no Barrack Obama if we didn't have the midwest. Dealing with a few retarded honkies is better than having to go to war with them over Silicon and then having to fix their country because of the humanitarian crisis involving all minorities in their country being subjected to Genocide. Because you know without the north they would resort to that, you just know it. I just say at least get rid of congress then the retarded honkies can't halt our government over silly things. Then we'll just have the north elect a president and keep him in office for life.

[tim]

the west would have naturally aligned with the north. the south had no industry and the north could have officially supported things like the underground railroad trying to get as many slaves to escape north as possible, destroying what little economic resources the south had. there would have been no reason for the west to join with the south, and they would have wanted some established state to help them so would have gone with the north.

even if they were just made their own country the north would have done just fine because it was still far and away the industrial center of the continent. they would have just gotten resources from the west the same way any other country gets resources from another. control of resources doesn't matter that much as long as you have good trade relations to get them, as long as you have industry to make use of them. japan for example has next to no natural resources but they have an educated population and industrial infrastructure to make use of imported resources.

[Mario the black knight]

But then what about in modern times now that America's only exports are computer chips and famous douchebags, wouldn't the north just become useless to this Southwest country, since we are useless now, since they would become pretty much completely independant of their need for us, since they have all the resources and cheap labor from the nearby mexicans they could ever need. Although we would still have the good schools I guess, so they would send us the supplies they need, and we would in return educate their people.

But that doesn't change that the southern nation would still be an unavoidable issue, since we would have hypothetically crushed them by supporting the underground railroad, and they would no longer produce anything, they would either try to go to war with us like crazy, or become a super poor nation that we would enevitably have to dump money into anyway.

Also, would we have done as well in the wars of the 20th century? I mean they are all mostly useless idiots, but what does pro american war propaganda work on better? We probably could get a decent amount of people between us and the southwest, but would it really as many as we can get as a whole nation?

[pichubro]

Yeah, the Southwest is big into technology. Arizona's main export is computers and electronic products, followed by bombs and ammunition... with one-third of products going to Mexico, and another large chunk going to China. With a lot of open spaces, we have plenty of military bases here as well.

I would bet that if the Southwest and South were to fight, the Southwest would win.

I'm not from the North, so I don't hear much about it except for New York and some of the universities up there, so I don't really see the relevance it holds today besides the jumping off point for future leaders or being the crossroads of cultures. So theoretically, I do believe that the Southwest could choose to become independent in an Alaskan-like mindset. We have the capacity to do so.
Not to mention that most people that live in the Southwest have family history from the Midwest, which would likely lead to an easy alliance for food from that area.

[tim]

the us is still the largest manufacturer in the world(we actually produce more than china and india combined) and a decent portion of it is in the north, not to mention the fact that wall street is the conduit which finances it all. if the north became a seperate nation many manufacturers would ramp up development in the north due to it being by far the best educated region in the us.

[Mario the black knight]

Really? I didn't know they did weapons too. I figured the gun companies were more in the midwest. I figured about the military bases though, lots of good training grounds.

Oh, I don't doubt that one bit. If they were a country by themselves, the Southwest would murder those braindead hics

Well, thats the one thing we do have, our schools, we've got MIT, Princton, and Harvard (though that hardly counts, thats a rich boy club) I remember seeing a book that had like different information for every college in the US, and some states took like, maybe half a page or a page. PA had like 4 pages by itself. Plus a lot of good stuff happens in New York City. And if the current map of the US broke up, basically we could use Ohio and Illinois as a bridge through the midwest to keep the east and west coasts connected to just segregate the south as it's own entity, since the Midwest would probably be kept with the rest of the north. Basically everything east of New Mexico and south of Illinois.

[pichubro]

See, I knew that we were still the largest manufacturer in the world, I just didn't make the connection to the north before. Cool. ^_^

Though if the southwest became separate, I would not want to join up with California... They can be their own nation like they almost were. I think Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Utah could make the new southwest nation, with emphasis on astronomy, conservation and military. Only because we have vast open landscapes and lower population compared to other parts of the US. (Though technically the Northwest states have the smallest combined population.)

[Mario the black knight]

Jun 24, 2011 22:37:35 GMT -5 tim said:

the us is still the largest manufacturer in the world(we actually produce more than china and india combined) and a decent portion of it is in the north, not to mention the fact that wall street is the conduit which finances it all. if the north became a seperate nation many manufacturers would ramp up development in the north due to it being by far the best educated region in the us.

Yeah, I guess the whole education factor really does apply for the more advanced manufacturing stuff. Plus Detroit isn't as amazing as it was in it's prime, but the Ford Group does still have some pretty strong presence in the world, like Europe and such, and is still American owned to the best of my knowledge. But I didn't know we produced that much, it seems like everyone blaims the lack of production and outsourcing on our economic situation.

[Mario the black knight]

I wish my mom would finally be serious about leaving. She always says so when she's drunk. Now she has no excuse not to leave, it's day time. Also, I'll be happy when I have a new computer so she can stop yelling about me using her computer. Also, by the way, the landlord is gonna have her useless car towed away at the end of the month, and she has done absolutely nothing about it. I wonder what she'll do when she goes outside to pick up other people's used cigerette butts on the side of the road and finds her car isn't sitting there anymore.

[tim]

any word on you getting your license

[tim]

btw calculus I final tomorrow, followed by calculus II starting july 5th. im moving july 4th.

[Mario the black knight]

My licence test is July 8th, I'm going with Justin. I'm hoping to get rides from Tyler, if not, I'm not sure how I'm getting there.

Wow, facinating. Where is your new place?